"Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
-- George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

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Thursday, December 14, 2006

A Man, A Plan, A Game Of Stratego

Via Kevin Drum, I am still trying in vain to digest a remarkable foreign policy proposal from a self-described "Jacksonian".

I say "remarkable" because it is written at very high levels of both literacy and utter cluelessness. It is unusual to see high-functioning core competencies utilized in the service of completely unworkable ideas. It's like reading the resume and master plan of the world's most dedicated Civilization player. Twenty-point game plans, with no realistic chance of succeeding. Plenty of gentlemanly bluster about how treating people with honor is all, yet no apparent knowledge or care about how they may feel about how we treated them, both in the past and now. To talk to these self-serving goons, you'd seriously think that every problem with Iran started in 1979, that history before that year just didn't exist.

And I'm not going to poke at a guy for any physical issues he might have, even as he volubly exhorts the hale to expend their physical attributes for The Decider's clear intemellectual shortcomings. But for Christ's sake, pal, if you feel that strongly about this Noble Cause, then I'm sure that there are many intel agencies that need a good desk analyst. Apply to the DLI; they're chronically short of Arabic linguists because of the whole ix-nay on the omo-hay deal. Hell, I even seriously considered applying to the DLI after I left my last job in 2004, just to maybe help offset one small iota of Dear Cheerleader's chronic incompetence somewhere along the line. And I think by now I've made myself pretty clear as to how I feel about Fredo's Folly in general.

Really, people. Either man up or shut up, already. We don't want to hear about how you can't "afford" to pitch in, or the stress on your family. There are several hundred thousands of your fellow citizens currently enduring all that and worse, because a bunch of damned fools think they can expiate their murky consciences with some furry rhetoric and regurgitated Clausewitz. It's pathetic enough in a bunch of pimply-faced fifteen-year-olds playing Warcrack (or, in my day, Dungeons & Dragons). But goddammit, enough. Either find a way to help -- even if it hurts -- or quit badgering the rest of us about what a great idea this will all turn out to be if "we" just stick it out for a couple more Friedmans.

I understand that they don't have the balls to simply admit they fucked up royally. But it's just an abuse of everyone's patience and intelligence to maintain this abhorrent pretense that one can vociferously and proactively "support" something -- and continue to pester the ever-growing majority of people who are seeing more clearly -- by merely ranting about it. I would think that at some point some of the 82nd Chairborne would take a look at themselves and their master plans, and maybe try to find even a low-rent scrivening desk job, if they're serious about helping the cause. That might require them taking a leave of absence from their gravy white-collar sinecures, but such is the sacrifice freedom requires, right?

Waving the virtual pom-poms, of course, is much easier. The world and the country will move on without them, around them, even as it is now starting to do the same to Fredo himself. Foreign policy's loss will be their moms' basements' gain.